


by the pricking of my thumbs

by thelyssymarie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Magical Stiles Stilinski, POV Outsider, Pack Mother Stiles Stilinski, Panic Attacks, it may or may not work, playing fast and loose with tenses, the author attempts to use humor, use of ocs as a narrative device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5352656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelyssymarie/pseuds/thelyssymarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Everybody at Beacon Hills High had a story about Stiles Stilinski. They were whispered in school hallways, traded like precious contraband in the stacks of the library, shared beneath the shadowy underside of the bleachers. Of course, no one dared to mention them when he was nearby, when he could overhear the tales they told about him. Who knew what might happen?</i>
</p><p> </p><p>or: Stiles Stilinski, witch, through the eyes of his classmates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	by the pricking of my thumbs

**Author's Note:**

> I just really love the idea of Stiles being a witch. And let's face it, as much as he tries, this kid is about as subtle as a brick wall; there is no way that none of his classmates would notice.
> 
> This is set post-season 2, in a magical world where Erica and Boyd never left and everyone has forgiven Allison and accepted both her and Lydia into the pack.
> 
> Disclaimer: I know nothing about witchcraft or the occult, all of the stuff in this is mostly from a few cursory google searches.
> 
> title from macbeth by william shakespeare

Stiles Stilinski was an enigma. At first glance, he seemed like every other teenager in Beacon Hills; he fell asleep in class, only ever seemed to eat at Vicki’s Diner, and damned if he ever missed one of Lydia Martin’s infamous house parties, but if anyone took the time to watch him, or even just hung around him long enough, they would begin to notice that there was something strange about him. Abnormalities followed Stiles like a wolf on the hunt. Some things that happened around him could be written off as odd, yet not altogether strange, coincidences or attributed to his typical eccentricity; others were harder to explain.

Everybody at Beacon Hills High had a story about Stiles Stilinski. They were whispered in school hallways, traded like precious contraband in the stacks of the library, shared beneath the shadowy underside of the bleachers. Of course, no one dared to mention them when he was nearby, when he could overhear the tales they told about him. Who knew what might happen? 

 

i.

 

Tabi Walsh claimed she once saw him arguing with his cat as she walked past his house one summer afternoon. The whole school knew about the little white and orange feline; Stiles had rescued it on his way to school when he was a sophomore and kept it hidden in his backpack all day. The little thing had become so attached to him that he ended up taking it home and keeping it. He called it Tansy. 

That afternoon Tabi swore he was arguing with it, and it seemed to respond to him. From the other side of the street, she had been too far away to make out what he was saying, but it was obvious that he was frustrated, arms gesturing wildly as he spoke to the cat. Unnerved, Tabi had hurried past as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself. She was halfway down the block, when he’d raised his voice to a shout.

“ _I don’t care if it’s the best option!_ I refuse to put them in any more danger than they have to be in, so either help me find something else, or we’re calling the whole plan off!”

The sound of a door slamming echoed down the street. Tabi didn’t look back.

 

ii.

 

Natsume Mizuhashi was the next person to see something strange. His dog had gotten a thorn stuck in her foot, and his mother had tasked him with taking her to the vet to get it removed. Natsume wasn’t too bothered by this; Scott McCall worked at Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, and Natsume quite liked him. They had been partners for a lit project the month before and Scott had been one of the nicest people Natsume had ever had the pleasure of working with. If Natsume also thought he was kind of cute, well, that was just a bonus. 

A bell chimed as Natsume pushed open the door of the clinic. He looked around the waiting area, listening to the faint voices filtering out from the room behind the counter, the sound of approaching footsteps growing louder as he stood there. Moments later Scott emerged, head turned, still speaking to someone in the back room.

“—ton will be pissed if you try anything without him here. I mean it Stiles, if you drop and break something, it’ll be on you,” he finished, before turning around to face Natsume, whose attention had been brought back to the counter when Scott entered the room. Smiling tiredly, Scott said “Sorry about that. How can I help you you?”

The rest of the visit went by uneventfully; Scott helped him get the dog out of the car, and together they carried her into the back. Stiles was nowhere to be seen, but Natsume had been too distracted by Scott’s smile to give it much thought. The thorn was removed, the foot bandaged. As they brought the dog back out the waiting room, chatting about school for a few minutes, Dr. Deaton returned from wherever he had been, giving both boys a nod. He headed for the back room, but before he opened the door he paused and addressed Scott.

“Is Mr. Stilinski here?”

“Yeah, I think he was doing homework in your office, but he might have moved now that we’ve finished up,” Scott told him as he rummaged behind the desk for the paperwork Natsume needed to sign.

“I see,” replied Dr. Deaton, raising an eyebrow. “Has he touched anything he’s not supposed to?”

Scott rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “I told him not to, but I’m not sure he really listened.”

Deaton sighed, as if Stiles messing around in the back of the animal clinic was a normal occurrence, and turned and pushed the door open, revealing Stiles sitting in the middle of the room on the table that Natsume’s dog had been on a few minutes before. 

What happened next happened very quickly. Natsume had just enough time to register that Stiles looked like he was concentrating very hard on what appeared to be a jar full of gray powder—a jar that was _floating_ two feet off the table in front of him. Dr. Deaton snapped “Stiles!” and the jar dropped like a stone, Stiles flinching and swinging his head around to face the vet in surprise. The door swung closed just in time to cut off a loud crash as the jar broke on the surface of the table. 

Natsume looked at Scott with wide eyes, and Scott had laughed awkwardly before clumsily changing the subject. “Cash or credit?”

Natsume was more wary of Scott and Stiles after that. The next time the dog had to go to the clinic, he made his sister take her.

 

iii.

 

Jetta Luce had walked into her first day of freshman year to find that her locker was underneath one Stiles Stilinski. 

Her older brother and his friends had warned her that Stiles was dangerous and that she shouldn’t talk to him if she knew what was good for her, but she didn’t pay them much mind. Stiles had seemed nice; he was never rude to her like some of the other upperclassmen, and sometimes gave her tips on how to survive Coach Finstock’s mandatory freshman gym class. He was bit odd, but she never found him to be threatening or creepy like her brother had led her to believe.

She did sometimes worry about what he kept in his locker though. Every time he opened it, she was hit by a pungent smell, not unlike their spice cabinet at home, but with a number of other scents that she couldn’t identify, and he kept a cardboard box on the bottom shelf that rattled when his books or backpack bumped against it. She wondered if it was drugs, but she didn’t think he seemed the type. Sometimes she’d considered asking him about it, but her brother’s warnings had whispered in the back of her mind, and she had kept her mouth shut.

She didn’t find out what was in the box until the week before midterms. She had ducked out of class to grab her forgotten biology homework from her locker when one of the classroom doors down the hall burst open. Isaac Lahey, a junior that Jetta had seen playing in lacrosse games, stumbled out, clutching his hand to his chest. Erica Reyes, another junior who she often saw hanging out with Stiles, was right behind him, texting furiously. Alarmed, and not wanting to get caught in the middle of whatever was going on, Jetta had slipped into the bathroom across the hall from the lockers and peered through the slats in the door. 

The two stopped in front of her locker, Isaac slumped heavily against the wall. Erica was still texting, her posture tense, body thrumming with nervous energy. After a minute, her phone finally buzzed a response, and she visibly relaxed, shoulders slumping in relief. She looked up at Isaac, murmured, “don’t worry, he’s on his way,” and Isaac nodded shakily, still clutching his hand.

Erica and Isaac looked up a few seconds before Jetta heard it; the slap of footsteps echoed down the hall, and moments later Stiles careened around the corner and made a beeline for his locker, fumbling with the combination.

“What happened?” he demanded, the locker door swinging open under his touch. He didn’t so much as glance at the other two, and Erica huffed irritably before replying.

“His lab partner was wearing a silver ring. It touched his hand when she passed him a vial. We told Harris he burned his hand on the hot plate and that I was taking him to the nurse”

Stiles nodded, as if touching a harmless piece of jewelry somehow explained why Isaac was now in seemingly excruciating pain. He pulled the lid off the mysterious cardboard box in his locker and tossed it on the floor.

“How long was it in contact with your skin?” 

This was directed at Isaac. “About ten seconds,” he gritted out, sucking in harsh breaths through his nose. His face was paler than it had been a few minutes ago. “Why isn’t healing?”

“It’s the same as Argent’s bullets,” said Stiles, frantically rummaging through the box. He began pulling out mason jars and shoving them into Erica’s arms. “If we treat it fast enough, you’ll be fine, but you won’t heal naturally without help.” Stiles selected a jar that was full of a syrupy liquid and set another one full of thin yellow flower petals on the floor. He instructed Erica to find a jar labelled “comfrey” and to take out one leaf. She made a noise in the back of her throat that Jetta could only describe as a _growl_ and dumped the other jars back into the box—“Hey, be careful with those!”—before sifting through them for the right one. 

Stiles poured a quarter sized drop of the amber liquid— _sap_ , Jetta’s mind supplied—onto Isaac’s hand, and then picked up the jar with the petals. He pinched out a few and shoved them into Isaac’s good hand.

“Chew these, they’ll help with the pain,” he said shortly.

Isaac took the petals gratefully and began chewing. He was noticeably calmer than he had been before Stiles had applied the sap, and a little bit of color had returned to his face.

Erica emerged from the locker triumphantly, and handed Stiles a long dried leaf. He took it and pressed it gently into the sap on Isaac’s hand before turning to pull a roll of gauze off the top shelf of his locker. He wrapped it around Isaac’s palm and muttered something indistinguishable. 

“There, that’s the best I can do right now. If it starts hurting again come find me or have one of you text me, and I’ll give you some more witch hazel. Now get back to class; we’ve got exams next week, and let’s face it,” he sighed, “none of us have exactly had the time to review lately, so it’s probably a good idea to not miss any more class than we already have.”

“Thanks Stiles!” said Erica cheerily, all traces of her earlier fear gone. Isaac gave him a small smile, and they both headed back down the hall to their classroom. Stiles sighed, and put the jars back into the box, picking up the lid from where it had landed on floor. He closed his locker door and spun the dial before jogging around the corner, back to whatever class he had come from.

When she was sure they were all gone, Jetta had stepped out of the bathroom. She wasn’t sure what she had just witnessed, but she finally understood why people thought there was something seriously strange about Stiles. Jetta wondered if this was worse than drugs. _Probably_ , she thought. 

 

iv.

 

Every Wednesday afternoon, Micah Trinder would make the six block walk from school to downtown Beacon Hills. His destination was the local yarn store, Thimble Pleasures. Micah had loved knitting since he was a boy; his grandmother had spent her Sunday evenings teaching him, quietly humming the music the church choir had sung that morning as she demonstrated how to loop the yarn around the needles. Those mornings were some of Micah’s fondest memories. His grandmother had passed away when he was 14, but he kept up the craft, finding that it helped him relax when school and life got to be too overwhelming. At seventeen, Micah had the most impressive winter wear collection in town, bar Lydia Martin. 

A chill breeze ruffled Micah’s hair as he crossed an intersection. It had been getting late in the year and the temperature had been dropping in recent weeks. He needed a new scarf. Or maybe a hat. He wasn’t sure, but he was determined to make something. Preferably something green. He missed the color when the leaves began to change. 

The bell jingled as he pushed open the door to the shop. The space was warm and bright, walls lined with colorful bundles and cones of yarn. With a bounce in his step, he’d browsed the shelves, selecting emerald and lavender bundles. His sister had said she wanted a new blanket; he could crochet her one for her birthday next month. He’d paid for his purchases, and stepped out of the shop onto the largely empty sidewalk. As he started in the direction of home, he’d paused, noticing a large sign proclaiming _SOLSTICE SALE, INCENSE 50% OFF_. Lila had become very into incense recently; apparently it was the new trend. And it _was_ on sale…

Mind made up, Micah had set off across the street, slipping past the Jeep parked on the curb, and stepped into the shop. 

A girl with dyed red hair and a nose ring greeted him from behind the counter. “Welcome to the Underhill. I’m Jordan. Let me know if you need help finding anything.”

Caught off guard by being suddenly addressed, Micah had tried to smile politely, but judging by the bemused look on Jordan’s face, he didn’t quite manage it.

“Um, the sign said there’s an incense sale? My sister—” 

Jordan had cut him off with a wave. “Incense is in the back on the right. It’s a big shelf, you can’t miss it.”

He blinked. “Thanks,” he murmured.

“No problem,” she said dismissively. “Just doing my job. Let me know if you need help, okay?” She smiled at him, this time more kindly. “Good luck!”

Micah had nodded awkwardly, and began picking his way across the store. There wasn’t much space to walk; the shelves and tables were stuffed with crystals, jars of herbs, candles, and other strange items. He’d nearly tripped over a stack of books titled _A Practical Guide to Witchcraft and Magick Spells_. A woman’s face stared up at him through the crystal ball on the cover.

Finally he’d spotted the display, a whole shelf of wooden boxes filled with thin colorful sticks. Dream catchers hung from the ceiling above him. Each box was labeled with the scent and its properties. There were at least three dozen different options, each with a whole list of things it was good for. How on earth was he supposed to choose one?

Micah had stared at the shelf, overwhelmed. This had been a bad idea. What made him think he could do this? He didn’t know the first thing about incense. His head spun, and he had felt himself beginning to panic. Oh god, what would the girl at the counter think if he left without buying anything? She would hate him. 

His breath rattled in his chest as he got more worked up. Distantly, he heard the sound of footsteps nearby and a muttered “oh, shit” that sounded like it was coming from underwater. His blood pounded in his ears.

“Hey, Micah, turn around for me dude, can you do that?” A calm voice reached his ears, and shakily he had turned to face whoever was speaking. It was Stiles Stilinski, the owner, he now realized, of the Jeep outside. He continued to talk quietly. 

“Is it okay if I touch you?”

Micah shook his head jerkily.

Stiles nodded, still calm. “Okay. Do you want to sit down?”

Without responding, Micah had let his back hit the wall behind him and slid to the floor. Stiles sat down in front of him, knocking into a stack of woven baskets. 

“Do you have any medication you usually take when this happens?”

Micah nodded.

“Do you have it with you?”

He nodded again.

“Can you tell me where it is?”

Micah shook his head. He didn’t think he could speak.

Stiles had looked momentarily concerned, but recovered quickly. “Alright, then can you breathe with me? Watch my chest.”

Stiles took an exaggeratedly deep breath in through his nose, and then slowly let it out through his mouth. Micah struggled to copy him, but after a few minutes, he was matching Stiles’ breathing. 

“There we go. You’ve got this, dude, you’re doing great, just keep breathing with me.”

When he felt he could speak again, Micah had muttered, “There’s a bottle in the front pocket of my bag.” His voice sounded weak and trembly. 

Stiles nodded and fished the bottle out. He skimmed the label and then poured out two tablets, handing them to Micah along with the water bottle that had been in the mesh pocket on the side of his backpack. Micah swallowed them gratefully, and gave Stiles a shaky smile.

“Thanks.”

Stiles grinned back at him. “No worries. I get them too sometimes. I know how much they suck when there’s no one there to help.” He stood up and offered a hand to Micah, pulling him to his feet. “You still wanna buy anything?”

Micah hesitated for a moment, then nodded an affirmative. “I didn’t know how to choose.”

“Oh, that’s easy!” Stiles face had lit up. “They’re for your sister right? Lila?”

Micah blinked in surprise. “Yeah. Her birthday is coming up in a few weeks. How did you know?”

“Oh, Boyd mentioned the other day that she smelled like incense. His sister just started buying it too.”

Micah had thought that was a bit odd—how could Boyd smell incense on a person a whole night after she had burned it?— but Stiles continued speaking, oblivious to the confused look Micah was giving him.

“Violet and cardamom would be perfect for her. Good properties, and all that.” Stiles snatched a handful of purple and brown sticks out of the boxes behind Micah and pressed them into his hand. “Here.”

Stiles spun around and scooped an armful of jars and candles out of the woven basket at the the top of the stack behind him. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. Thanks.” Micah watched as Stiles navigated his way back to the register, dumping his purchases on the counter. After Jordan had rung him up, he swept all of the items into his bag, giving her a salute as he walked out the door. Micah slowly made his way to the front of the store, the whole time thinking about Stiles Stilinski and the slightly strange things he had said. He didn’t know what to make of him. All he knew was that Stiles had been kind to him, and Micah decided that he liked him, despite the underlying sense of unease he had left him with.

 

v.

 

Kelsey had been bored out of her mind when it happened. She hated chemistry. All the formulas got mixed up in her head; how was she supposed to memorize a whole chart full of random letters? Ridiculous. She had much better things to do with her time. Like touching up her roots. The blue dye was starting to fade and the dark hair showing through was annoying her. She needed to re-dye it before it got any worse.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by Mr. Harris calling her name. 

“Miss Perez. If you could turn off the lights?”

She had stared back at him unflinchingly. He stared back expectantly for a long moment, before rolling his eyes. “Detention, Miss Perez.” He waved an exasperated hand at the boy sitting to her left. “Mr. Stilinski, if you would?” 

The kid jerked his head up, snapping out of whatever world he was in. Stilinski was always distracted by something; the boy was seriously weird. He scrambled out of his seat, intent on doing as he was told, probably so Harris would stop staring him down. Kelsey had watched lazily as he tripped over his own bag and stumbled over to the light switch, hand outstretched. His hand was still a few inches away from the switch when the room had gone pitch dark. 

And it truly had been pitch dark. There was a total absence of light in the room; even the light that had been filtering in through the blinds and from the hallway had vanished. Kelsey had held up her hand and was only mildly surprised to discover that she got no reaction when she’d waved it in front of the person behind her.

A few people screamed. To her left, Kelsey heard Stilinski mutter “shit” as his hand smacked the wall. 

“Shut up!” Harris snapped. “It’s like none of you have been in the dark before. Mr. Stilinski what did you do?”

Stilinski was still muttering by the wall, a stream of incoherent words mixing with a lot of swearing. At the sound of Harris’ voice, there was a bang in his direction accompanied by yet another muffled curse. “Uh, I turned off the lights like you said to?”

Despite the fact that she couldn’t see, Kelsey knew that Harris was rolling his eyes. “Yes, I can see that Mr. Stilinski. But what happened to the rest of the light?” he demanded impatiently.

“I’m as clueless as you are, sir,” Stilinski had replied weakly. 

Harris clicked his tongue in irritation. “Well, in that case, would anyone else like to offer an explanation?” The question was ignored by the class in favor of confused and worried whispering. Kelsey heard Harris sigh and begin to feel his way back to his desk. Behind her, heels clicked across the classroom floor, stopping to her left where she assumed Stilinski still was.

“Stiles,” hissed a voice. Of course. Lydia Martin to the rescue. Her and Stilinski had developed a weird friendship over the past few months which had not gone unnoticed by the student body. Kelsey didn’t particularly care for gossip, but the stir it had caused was so big that even she had heard about it at length. 

“Lydia, oh my god,” Stilinski had gasped. “Where are you?”

“What did you _do_?” she demanded in lieu of a reply, straight to the point as always. 

“I don’t know!” he exclaimed, and then, voice quieter, “I was just so focused on turning the lights off so I could go back to what I was doing and before I even touched the switch everything went dark! I didn’t mean to do _anything_!”

Lydia sighed. “Well, fix it. You don’t need any more attention in this school.”

“Like I get any attention here anyway,” Stilinski had scoffed. Kelsey rolled her eyes. For someone near the top of their class, he sure was dense. She doubted there was a single student in the school who hadn’t heard a story about something weird he’d been involved in.

“You are such an idiot sometimes,” Lydia had said matter-of-factly, voicing Kelsey’s thoughts. 

“Hey!”

“Anyway,” she continued, ignoring his protests. “Do your—” the next words were spoken too quietly for Kelsey to hear. “—lights back on.”

“It’s not that easy!” he hissed back. “I did this by accident; it’s a lot harder to do it on purpose. This is above my level!”

Lydia’s heels clicked across the tile again and stopped where Stilinski’s voice had been coming from. There was a rustle of fabric and a yelp, followed by the thud of something hitting the ground, and when she spoke again her voice was closer to the floor. “Tell me how you did it the first time,” she said, voice even more hushed than it had been before. Kelsey strained to make out her words.

“I told you, I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “Just tell me what happened. Maybe we can figure out how to reverse it,” she explained patiently. Next to her, Stilinski’s breathing was becoming more audible.

“I-I don’t know,” he said. “I was just thinking _lights off, lights off, lights off_ , and then it went dark. I tried to do the opposite, but it’s not working.”

There was a pause, presumably Lydia thinking this over. Kelsey had taken the opportunity to listen to her other classmates. Apparently several had already come to the conclusion that it was another weird Stilinski thing and had decided to leave it alone. The advanced freshmen in the row to her right were still freaking out—this was probably the first time they’d been exposed to something this weird. They’d get used to it eventually. Mr. Harris seemed to be trying to explain the situation to someone in the office over the phone. From the sound of it, they didn’t quite grasp what was going on, if Harris’ exclamation of “ _You_ try to find spare light bulbs when you can’t see your own damn hand in front of your face!” was anything to go by. 

Absently she realized Lydia had begun talking again; her voice was so low that she hadn’t noticed it over Harris’ yelling. “—of fire, we do not need this classroom to go up in flames when no one can see it, okay? You can do this, Stiles. I know you can.”

Kelsey heard Stilinski take a deep breath. “Okay,” he said firmly, and then muttered, “here goes nothing.”

She’d strained her ears, but for a long moment Kelsey couldn’t hear anything other than Stilinski’s slightly labored breathing. At first she thought nothing was going to happen— _what did you expect, magic?_ —and then light had flooded the classroom.

Kelsey squinted to adjust to the sudden brightness, and glanced over to the light switch. Stilinski was on the floor, leaning against the wall, eyes screwed shut in concentration. Next to him, Lydia Martin was crouched by the bookshelf, one hand on his shoulder. Over the surprised shouts of their classmates, Kelsey could hear her saying “You did it, Stiles! I told you you had it in you!” 

She had been grinning, something that Kelsey thought might be pride shining in her eyes. He’d smiled back at her tentatively when he opened his eyes, and she pulled him to his feet. Just as they let go of each other, the bell rang, cutting through the noise. 

“I’m emailing you all the video we were supposed to watch with questions; I’m making it a homework grade so be sure to do it!” Harris had shouted at the retreating backs of the class.

Kelsey hauled herself out of her chair and slung her bag over her shoulder. She followed Lydia and Stilinski out the door of the classroom into the hall and watched as Jackson Whittemore joined them, walking out of the calculus class next door. He’d seemed agitated, switching between looking concerned about Lydia and pissed at Stilinski; Lydia, ever disdainful, had ignored him and dragged both him and Stilinski down the hall to the school doors. Kelsey had shrugged and turned, heading to the cafeteria. No point in wondering about it; the whole school would be buzzing with the new Stilinski related incident by the end of lunch, no one having a decent explanation of what actually happened. No one ever did.

 

0.

 

“Do I have a reputation?”

The question rang through the loft, the surrounding conversations trailing off into silence as Stiles’ question sank in. He looked around at the pack expectantly.

Isaac was the first to speak, shifting around on the couch so he was facing Stiles, Erica’s feet sliding off his lap as he turned.

“I don’t understand the question,” he said hesitantly, glancing around at the other members of the pack, all of whom, with the exception of Lydia, looked just as confused as he sounded. 

Stiles sighed in frustration. “Like, at school. Do people have, like, weird ideas about me?” He scrubbed a hand through his hair as he spoke, a nervous habit that didn’t go unnoticed by the others. Scott frowned.

“Why do you care?” Erica asked dismissively. She had relocated her feet to the arm of Boyd’s chair. “It’s not like anyone’s going to do anything about it.”

Stiles pointed at her accusatorially. “There! Do anything about what? That implied that I _do_ have a reputation, and _not_ a good one, okay, and I am not cool with that! People keep staring at me in the hall after the thing in Harris’ class last week, I’m pretty sure the freshman whose locker is under mine is afraid of me, and the other day a group of kids crossed the street to avoid walking past my cat,” he exclaimed, arms gesticulating wildly “and I don’t know why!”

From her spot on the couch wedged between Isaac and Scott, Allison giggled. 

Stiles rounded on her. “What? What’s so funny?” He looked around the loft suspiciously, scowling at the complete lack of reaction to his outburst. 

“Seriously, what the hell?” he whined. “Does everyone think I’m a serial killer or something?”

This time, the laugh came from Derek, who was leaning against the table behind Stiles. Stiles stared at him incredulously. “Did you just snort?”

Derek raised an impressive eyebrow—and _seriously_ , what was with that guy’s eyebrows?—but didn’t offer an explanation. Stiles turned to Lydia helplessly, who was still the only one in the room who hadn’t visibly reacted since his original question.

She rolled her eyes and sighed, giving Stiles a look that clearly said _you are the biggest idiot I have ever had the misfortune to know_. “Weird things happen around you. All the time. Did you honestly think that nobody would notice?” She sniffed. “Beacon Hills is not that big of a town, and in a school as small as ours, rumors spread quickly. I’m pretty sure half the student body thinks you’re in a cult.”

And… what? 

That was not at all what Stiles had been expecting. He thought he had done pretty well with keeping his magic on the down low. Apparently he wasn’t as discreet as he had thought. 

“So, does anyone actually think I’m a witch?” he asked hesitantly.

“Probably some,” Lydia said dismissively. “I doubt they actually believe it though. Most people don’t actually think magic is real. Shocking, I know.”

“I can’t believe that out of all of us, _I_ was the first one to be found out. You’re all the least subtle people in the world; how the hell was I the only one to draw suspicion?”

Derek’s other eyebrow went up. “In what world do you not draw attention everywhere you go?” he asked flatly. 

“Hey,” Stiles protested. “I can be sneaky!”

“Actually, Stiles, you really can’t,” said Scott, looking apologetic. 

Stiles held a hand to his heart. “My own best friend, betraying me. I can’t believe this. You’re all the worst,” he said dramatically. “See if I ever help any of you guys again.”

“There’s always Deaton.”

“That hurts, Boyd, it really does.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, well,” Stiles blustered, “you would miss my rapier wit and frankly dazzling charm. Deaton can’t top that with his cryptic, magic veterinarian bullshit.”

Boyd hummed noncommittally. Stiles narrowed his eyes, and opened his mouth to deliver a scathing follow up, but Lydia beat him to it. “Yes, Stiles, we know, we’d all be lost without you, etc, etc.” She folded her arms imperiously. “Can we get back to the actual issue here now?”

Stiles pouted. “Fine. But I think we all know that the answer is, as I have lamented many a time about how _none of you have seen it_ , that we should watch Star Wa—”

“ _No,_ Stiles _._ ”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Reviews are always appreciated! 
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](thelyssymarie.tumblr.com)


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